


Whiskey and Water

by mithrel



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Clubbing, F/M, First Kiss, First Meetings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:12:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3308426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithrel/pseuds/mithrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For haletostilinski for the tumblr stereksecretsanta. The idea for this came from a tumblr post about how someone should make a nightclub where people wear wristbands to indicate what kind of people they were looking for. In this fic, white = no one, yellow = friends, pink = female, blue = male, purple = male and female, green = all genders.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Whiskey and Water

**Author's Note:**

> For haletostilinski for the tumblr stereksecretsanta. The idea for this came from a tumblr post about how someone should make a nightclub where people wear wristbands to indicate what kind of people they were looking for. In this fic, white = no one, yellow = friends, pink = female, blue = male, purple = male and female, green = all genders.

Stiles walked into Preference, perusing the wristbands at the door. Since he was meeting Scott there he picked up a yellow wristband. Not that he’d object if someone tried to pick him up, but it would be awkward when he was with someone he knew.

He found Scott with Allison at the end of the bar. Both of them were wearing white bands, since they’d been monogamous since high school.

“Hey,” Scott said, unwinding his arm from Allison’s waist. “Pull up a stool.”

Stiles sat down. He raised a hand to the bartender, who nodded and held up a finger.

“So how’s life in the Argent-McCall household?” Stiles teased them.

Scott mock-scowled. “I’m fine. Aren’t you fine, _Mrs. McCall?_ ”

Allison grinned at him, eyes twinkling. “Just fine, Mr. Argent.”

Stiles laughed. Allison had put her foot down about keeping her own name when they married, and ever since then they’d argued good-naturedly about it. Stiles brought it up at every opportunity, since he thought it was hilarious.

When the bartender came over Stiles ordered a rum and coke. Scott and Allison already had drinks, Allison what looked like a bourbon and Scott some hideously neon thing Stiles wouldn’t let within a mile of his mouth.

“I have some bad news for you,” Scott said as the bartender set down Stiles’ drink.

He immediately went into panic mode, running through all the people who could be sick or hurt. “What? Is it your mom? Is she in the hospital? Is it serious?”

“Worse than that, dude.”

“What could possibly be _worse?_ ” Stiles yelped.

Scott looked him in the eye, his expression solemn. “You’ll have to find someone else to share your life with.”

Stiles felt his brow bunching. “Huh? Scott, what are you–?”

“Jackson proposed.”

Stiles stared at him a moment before it finally clicked. Lydia. He shoved Scott so hard he toppled off the barstool and lay on the floor laughing as people stared.

“You asshole! I thought it was something serious!”

“It is! You had that whole…five year plan…” Scott wheezed.

Stiles looked at Allison for support. She shook her head and poked Scott in the ribs with her shoe. “Get up, you’re embarrassing yourself.”

The bartender put Stiles’ drink down as Scott picked himself up off the floor. Stiles glared at him, took a gulp of his rum and coke, and with a “Watch my drink!” tossed over his shoulder to Allison, headed to the dance floor.

It was pretty crowded there, people with pink and blue wristbands mostly, with a healthy sprinkling of green and purple. Stiles wasn’t much of a dancer–people said he had one dance and didn’t care what song was playing–but he mostly wanted to get away from Scott and cool down.

A few people approached him, but gave him space when they saw his wristband.

There was a dark-haired girl in the middle of the floor, laughing. She was wearing a green wrist band and had quite a crowd around her. Stiles could see why. The way she moved was hypnotic, swaying her hips to the grinding beat, her whole body given over to the music. Stiles felt even more ungainly, watching her.

When the next song started she caught someone’s eye across the bar. Stiles looked in that direction, but couldn’t see anyone.

She took hold of the waist of a girl clad in black leather and whispered to her. The girl beamed and nodded.

The dark-haired girl then made her way off the dance floor as the song ended, leaving Miss Leather behind. Stiles felt his brow furrowing.

She came back a few minutes later, dragging a guy with a white wristband behind her. The girl in leather smiled up at him. His lips quirked painfully and he spoke to her briefly, before turning to the girl who had dragged him along, brows down. Stiles couldn’t hear what he said over the music, but from the way his eyes flashed Stiles was glad the glower wasn’t directed at him.

The girl only sighed, pushed him off a few inches, then spoke to Miss Leather again. The girl in leather smiled, stood on her tiptoes and kissed her and they made their way off the dance floor.

Then the guy looked over at him. His glare was just as bad as Stiles imagined, and it was only then that he realized he’d been staring.

The guy was in his face before Stiles could get away. “You got a problem?”

Jeez, he was _built._ If it weren’t for the wristband and the glare Stiles would so be tapping that. Or, OK, getting shot down by that, but right now he just wanted to sink through the floor.

“No, no problem! Just here for a dance!”

The guy folded his arms. “You’re not dancing.”

“OK, fine, to tell the truth, my friend said something kind of douchey and I wanted to get away from him for awhile.”

The guy’s demeanor softened slightly. “You get dragged here too?”

Stiles blinked. “No. You did?”

The guy’s sigh was audible over the music. “Yeah. My sister–“ He gestured to the dance floor, realized his sister had vanished and turned back to Stiles. “Well, you saw.”

“Why is she trying to set you up with people if you’re not interested?”

The guy shrugged. “She thinks I need to ‘get back out there.’” His finger-quotes made it abundantly clear what he thought of the idea.

“Man, that sucks.”

“You have _no_ idea.”

“So you wanna come meet my asshole friend and his wife?”

“I haven’t even met you yet.”

“Oh, sorry! I’m Stiles.”

“Derek,” the guy said, shaking the hand Stiles held out.

***

“Dude!” Scott said as Stiles plopped back down on his stool, “Where’d you go?”

Stiles took a sip of his drink and made a face at the watered-down taste. “Away. That was not cool, bro.”

“Sorry,” Scott mumbled.

“Who’s your friend?” Allison asked, watching Derek hovering awkwardly in the background.

“This is Derek. Derek, this is Scott, and his wife Allison.”

Allison gave him a sincere smile. “Sit down, Derek.”

He perched on the stool the other side of Stiles. “I figure if your sister sees you talking to us, she might get off your case for awhile,” Stiles told him, signaling the bartender for a fresh drink. 

“Good idea,” Derek said, relaxing a little on the stool.

“His sister’s trying to matchmake,” he told the others.

The bartender came over. “Can I get another rum and coke?” Stiles asked him.

“Sure thing, and for you?”

Derek paused. “Just water, thanks.”

“Coming right up.”

They made small talk for awhile. “Do you come here a lot?” Derek asked Stiles.

He shrugged. “Every couple weeks or so, usually on weekends. I assume this is your first time here.”

Derek snorted. “Yeah.”

“It’s a pretty cool place if you don’t have people throwing themselves at you,” Scott said, holding up his wrist.

“People don’t throw themselves at me. My sister throws them at me.”

“So maybe come without your sister next time,” Allison suggested.

That got another snort. “Yeah, right.”

The bartender came back with the drinks and Stiles held up his glass to Derek. “To family members who don’t know when to butt out.”

Derek’s lips quirked and he clinked his glass against Stiles’.

***

After they finally left about an hour later, Scott asked, “So did you get his phone number?”

Stiles stared at him. “Dude, no. Why would I do that?”

“He was obviously into you!”

“Are you nuts?” Stiles squawked. “He was just happy I got him away from his sister!”

“Did you at least get his last name?” Allison asked. “He doesn’t have to be interested in you for you to be friends.”

Stiles realized to his chagrin that he hadn’t. Most of the talk had been about work, what they majored in in college, that sort of thing. He supposed he could go to the company where Derek said he worked, but that would be a crazy-stalker thing to do, and not likely lead to friendship.

In the end he got busy with work and didn’t think about Derek. Much. And if some of that not-thinking tended to happen when he was in the shower, well. He’ll probably never see the guy again, and anyway he didn’t even know if Derek was interested in guys. Or anyone, after the bad breakup he’d hinted at.

So it was a couple weeks before he went back to Preference, picking up a purple wristband, because some drinking and meaningless sex was just the thing he needed to distract him from—

He stopped in his tracks. Derek was standing by the bar, awkwardly chatting with a girl in a yellow wristband.

Derek caught sight of him over the girl’s head and his eyes lit up. Stiles swallowed and made his way over.

“Hey,” he said awkwardly.

“Hey,” Derek replied, rubbing the back of his neck.

“This the friend you were meeting here?” the girl asked.

Derek nodded, the tips of his ears flushing, as Stiles shot him a confused glance.

Just then the bartender set down the girl’s drink, and she smiled at them before moving off to find a seat.

“You weren’t meeting me here,” Stiles said.

“Yeah, well…” Derek stared at the floor.

Stiles darted a glance down at Derek’s wristband. Yellow.

“So you’re looking for friends now?” Stiles asked.

Derek’s answer was mumbled, so Stiles could barely catch it over the music, but he did hear it. ”Mostly I’m just looking for you.”

His jaw dropping open, Stiles managed, “But…I didn’t say when I’d…” The lightbulb went on. “Dude, have you been coming here every weekend looking for me?”

Derek coughed. “Of course not.”

As Stiles stood there, trying to figure out just what the hell was going on, Derek darted a glance at his wristband, licked his lips, leaned in and kissed him.

Stiles’ brain took .5 seconds to think _What the fuck?_ before he was kissing Derek back, nothing aggressive or rushed, just a gentle brushing of lips. Stiles could feel Derek’s stubble rasping against his skin.

When Derek pulled away, Stiles manages “I…thought you were looking for friends.”

Derek shrugged uncomfortably. “Like I said, I was mostly looking for you…and I saw the wristband so I…if you don’t want–“

Stiles put a finger over his mouth, silencing him. “Dude, I want.”

Derek smiled, and it transformed his whole face, lighting it up and crinkling in his eyes.

He leaned in and kissed Stiles again.


End file.
